The Process

This page is devoted to helping explain the process that lies behind each and every linoleum block print that I create. It follows the creation of an edition I made for the Summercamp Music Festival in Chillicothe, Illinois.

It all starts with a pastel/charcoal sketch where the composition and color placement is all planned out.

Once the sketch is complete it is transferred onto a blank linoleum plate, literally running the pastel drawing through the press onto the plate, creating the reversed image. Let the carving commence! Whatever is widdled away at this point will either remain the color of the paper (white in this case) or is left clean to get a true color from another plate. The pinks in the background and text are carved away in this scenario because there will be a completely separate pink plate so it remains bright and clean and not muddied by layering additional colors. Paper is cut to size and ready to start mixing the ink…

First color – Yellow.

Running press with inked rollers
and blank sheet in grippers.

Image being imprinted on the sheet.

Time to crank the tunes, open a beer (or many) and finish the run.

160 Sheets Later…

Back to carving the plate,
here’s the tools of the trade.
Funny the carving tools
actually come with their
own band-aids, yes I’ve had to use them….

Pile ‘o lino shavings:

Orange Plate Ready To Go.

Orange ink mixed, I use a pretty limited palette of inks and prefer to mix my colors

Orange plate inked:

Orange Pass

Red plate.

Red ink.

Red pass.

Burnt Sienna Ink

Sienna plate.

Completely separate plate for the light pink/purple in the text and background. Because I layer transparent inks I have to be very careful of the color choices/progression in the printing process. In order to get a true “pink/purple” for the background I either have to use a separate plate or mix an ink very heavy in opaque white to completely cover the previous colors beneath it.

Either works, but using a heavy ink would also seal the paper making any further layers of ink not adhere and cause whats called “offsetting”. Basically the ink puddles up onto of the sealed paper instead of going down in a nice smooth layer. So obviously Im going the other route.

Mixed ink, very transparent

Inked press

Pink/Purple pass on the prints

Dark purple pass

Just the final black “key” plate to run on this edition. Always my favorite pass, not only because it means the printing is almost done, but it ties the whole image together and really makes all the colors pop.